


medicine

by perennial



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: (ex-enemies), Enemies to Friends to Lovers, F/M, Near-Death Experience, Ten Years Later, and then what happened, buckle up for drama, everyone and their brother has written this exact same fic and i wanted to join the club, the golden trio adopt draco
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-01
Updated: 2019-01-01
Packaged: 2019-10-02 02:00:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,402
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17255498
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/perennial/pseuds/perennial
Summary: Slowly, steadily, Draco becomes part of the cement of their group; so much so that his presence among them is expected instead of requested, and they all modify their wards to grant him access, and Harry's kids include him in their drawings. Hermione feels like she's watching someone come to life.





	medicine

**Author's Note:**

> you could still be what you want to be  
> what you said you were when you met me  
> [[daughter](https://youtu.be/lrulQAZq7Y8)]
> 
> Since this fic somehow became 80 Proof, I am adding the PSA/disclaimer that alcoholic beverages SOLVE EXACTLY ZERO PROBLEMS.

The scrap of parchment arrives out of the blue. Hermione sits at her kitchen table cupping a mug of cold tea and stares out the window. The note lies on the table before her.

> _I'm razing the Manor. Let me know if you'd like to be in attendance to see it fall._  
>  _— Draco Malfoy_

She runs in mental circles until finally bringing it to Harry and Ron. Harry takes the paper from her and automatically reads it aloud, and despite the humorlessness of the situation, she's amused; evidently this is what comes of having young children who require vocalization of everything in print.

Ron says, "Just like him to call it _the_ Manor, as though he's the only one who's ever had one."

"Should I go?"

Harry says, "You still have nightmares, don't you? It might help put some old ghosts to bed."

"Or reawaken them. The house didn't torture me, Bellatrix did. And I saw her die. The primary ghost is dead. It's been so long; what good would it do?"

"So don't go," says Ron. "Doesn't sound like you want to anyway."

"But what if Harry's right and there are old unacknowledged ghosts that I'll grapple with years from now and I'll regret not having seen it?"

Both men give her looks she knows well. To them, the matter is black and white: no gray area, just a yes or no.

"So go, then," says Ron.

"Want us to be there too?" asks Harry.

In the end she decides the potential benefits outweigh the risks. On an overcast September afternoon she apparates to the gated entry of Malfoy Manor and trudges up the drive to where a pale-haired man in a black shirt stands waiting.

His photograph appears in newspapers and magazines from time to time, so the sight of him is nothing new, but she realizes as she approaches him that she hasn't exchanged words with Draco Malfoy in nearly ten years. He's aged well; any youthful baby fat has given way to clean lines, and he's managed to pick a particularly flattering hairstyle; she's willing to bet he spends almost as much on his haircuts as she does on monthly rent. The potion manufacturing business must be good.

Nothing in his face indicates his opinion of who she has become. His expression is neutral and his eyes are shuttered.

"Do you want to see inside?" he asks her.

She looks at the front entrance and feels nauseated. "I'm fine, thanks." The front doors are wide open, as are many of the windows; from what she can tell, the place is empty as a shell. "What happened to your possessions?"

"Sold or destroyed."

She frowns in confusion. "I thought your house was full of heirlooms."

"I don't want my legacy," he says briefly.

She's still processing the entire scenario – his neutral eyes and discarded birthright and the looming, empty house full of ten years' aged nightmares – that it takes her a moment to realize he is looking at her as though waiting, so she says something inane like _full speed ahead, then_ and he turns toward the house and waves an arm.

The demolition spells are efficient. Draco watches the left wing fall with jaw clenched. Hermione has only been thinking about herself, but now, standing here, the real cost to him occurs to her. She feels her first spasm of true sympathy for the boy who once caused her so much grief. She has stood in his shoes, hasn't she, and watched her world collapse? They both lost their parents and the life they knew. They were both thrown into situations bigger than their understanding and carried burdens too heavy for their years. The thought of Lucius Malfoy still sours her stomach, but Narcissa saved Harry's life, and Draco has made a public statement of remorse; she can set aside old animosities for one day.

She only planned to stay long enough to see the destruction of the main wing, but now, observing the shattered expression he is trying so hard to hide, she knows she can't possibly leave until it is all over. She ungrips her crossed arms and reaches for his hand; he's numbingly cold. She squeezes gently. It's a moment, but his fingers tighten around hers. They stand there, sharing comfort and solidarity, as the walls of the manor crumble.

She watches archways and windows collapse into rubble. Balustrades and stairwells follow them down. The regal Malfoy crest carved into the stone over the front entrance is smashed with a wrecking spell and dissolves into powder. He doesn't let go of her hand until the end.

When the air is thick with dust and clear of noise, she turns to him and says, "I could use a drink. Three Broomsticks?"

"If it's all the same, I'd rather not be out in public at the moment."

"Right." The dismay that flashes through her is a surprise.

"But I have whiskey back at my flat."

-

She doesn't know why she imagined Draco Malfoy's flat would be something reasonable, logical, or suitable for a single man in his late twenties. He lives in a three-story penthouse that could swallow up her humble home in one gulp. It's breathtakingly lovely: tastefully decorated, airy and modern but still warm enough to feel lived in, and so beyond her context of property value that she doesn't even bother guessing at comparisons to her rent rate. From the size of it, coupled with her knowledge of bachelors, she wonders how he keeps it so clean, then remembers there are many perks to having a disposable income.

"Ah, ah, ah," he says, grabbing her elbow as she wanders toward what appears to be a two-level library. "I'll lose you in there and never find you again. This way; it's a nice evening, we can drink on the terrace."

The terrace is lovely as well, with potted palms and heat lamps and a view of all the lights of London. He hands her a glass full of amber liquid that slides down her throat like honey, and she sips slowly, savoring the taste. He settles into the chair beside hers and they sit in comfortable silence for a while before she breaks it to ask, "Do your parents know? About today?"

"There's no telling. It's been a while since I've been able to... make it over there to visit. Don't worry, the guilt of abandoning them is my constant companion." His voice is bitter.

"Maybe so long as they have each other, they'll be alright." She only half-believes her own words. She doesn't know what would be worse: suffering in Azkaban or watching someone you love suffer alongside you. She has little sympathy for the Malfoys, but their sentence, justified though it may be, must be hard on any son who loves his parents.

"It's my fault. If it hadn't been for me, for everything I did, they wouldn't be there."

"Hindsight is a bitch," she agrees.

A pause.

"You do think it's my fault?"

"Oh," she says. She hadn't realized he wanted to be coddled.

"Thank you," he says. "Everyone has been making excuses for me for the last ten years. Thank you for letting it be my fault." He pauses, then chuckles. "I guess of all people I shouldn't be surprised it's you."

"I wasn't trying—"

"I know, Granger, I know."

She persists, "I only meant that I understand. My parents… They aren't part of my life either. And it's my fault."

He reaches over to clink his glass against hers. They both take large swallows.

"What is this, anyway?" she says, turning her glass in her hands; more for something to say than from genuine curiosity.

He knows it, too. "Have you become a whiskey connoisseur since last we met?"

"Would that be so hard to believe?"

"My money's on you preferring mojitos and manhattans to straight liquor."

She pulls a face; he's correct. "Well, I like this."

"You can have the other bottle to take home with you."

"Oh, you don't have to— Just tell me the label, I'll buy my own."

He rolls his eyes. "This isn't sold in shops, Granger."

She sips and surveys him over the rim of her glass. No one has called her by her last name since her Hogwarts days. It's making her slightly nostalgic, and it's pulled her back ten years to the days when they were a regular part of each other's lives. The hatred is gone but the familiarity is there, and she likes it.

"Who cuts your hair?"

"Bernard. On Londsale Avenue."

"Must say, I'm surprised at this." She waves a hand toward the view. "Never could have predicted you would decide to stay in Muggle London."

"Bit suffocating on the other side. There's a few of us here. Zabini's a few blocks down. You remember Blaise Zabini?"

"Certainly. We're pen pals, didn't he tell you?"

His eyebrows lift in a smile. "You keep in touch with anyone from school?"

"My old crowd, yes."

"I'm surprised you didn't bring your two henchmen today."

"I'm a big girl," she tells him, which is a phrase only whiskey would allow to pass her lips. "I don't need them at my side for all my life's troubles and travails."

"Just ironic, I suppose, seeing as the three of you were once one of the most codependent groups of friends I've ever seen. I suppose we really have all grown up."

She's eaten his salt, goes the phrase, so she stays silent. Draco never understood friendship like hers and Ron's and Harry's, and until he has such friends of his own, he never will.

He segues into the topic of Ron singly. "You two still together?"

"No, that's been done with for ages now. We're still close, but better as friends. Are you still with – what's her name, the one in the tabloids—"

"Astoria," he says, with a sourness that doesn't need further explanation.

"That's right. Astoria Lemongrass."

"Greengrass."

"Oh, I forgot." Hermione laughs. "We used to call her Lemongrass because she always looked like she'd just sucked on a lemon. She had a different boyfriend every month; we called them Astoria's Juice Bar."

They fall to reminiscing: discussing old teachers and classmates, calling up memories of favorite Halloween banquets and worst end of term exams, trying to best each other with ways they got points docked from their respective houses. It's disconcertingly nice to discover Draco Malfoy has managed to transform from a spoilt horror of a boy into an amiable, dry-humored companion, if he so chooses.

"Did you ever hear about the time we thought you were the Heir of Slytherin?" She giggles so hard she snorts.

"Not surprising on the part of Potter and Weasley, but I thought you were supposed to be the smart one." He's smiling. A genuine smile, not the superior smile of a nasty little school-aged snot. For a moment she thinks she's hallucinating.

"I can't remember ever having a normal conversation with you, like this. Not even a barely civil one."

He says, "Well, we weren't friendly, were we?"

"Understatement of the century."

"You annoyed me. I was intentionally unkind, more than the situation generally called for."

She raises her glass in a toast. "Same."

He watches her with a faint smile. "I think I was a touch jealous."

That provokes a guffaw. "Jealous! Of?"

"You were so effortlessly clever."

"It wasn't effortless," she informs him.

"And happy."

Her retort stills on her tongue. She remembers the miserable boy from those final years, the boy who sat in her classes and walked through the halls looking lost and angry and scared, who didn't know how to ask for help, who knew he couldn't save himself or anyone he cared about but tried to in the only way he thought he could, and only managed to reap destruction.

She looks at his face now, wan and unsmiling, and wonders just how much has really changed. She wonders how much might have been different if she hadn't been so willing to believe the worst, always looked for another reason to loathe him. She wonders what would be different now – and what _could_ be different now, if she were to do now what she should have back then.

"My birthday is on Saturday," she says.

"Happy early birthday."

"Thanks. What do you say to saving those well-wishes for the actual day? There's a group going to O'Carolan's for a bite and a pint."

"You trying to make friends of us, Granger?" He looks surprised but – to her relief – not disinclined. "What would the Boy Who Lived say?"

"Worse things have happened." She grins.

"Well then…" He adds a splash of whiskey to both their glasses and raises his to her. "Count me in."

-

"So," says Harry. "We're friends with Malfoy now, are we?"

Harry Potter has given Hermione a myriad of reasons to love him over the years, but she doesn't think she's ever loved him for anything more than his current use of the word 'we'.

"Yes."

He stands there for a moment, rocked back on his heels, studying the figure of their former enemy. Then he shrugs and his eyebrows lift and he says, "Want another?" He counts their empty glasses and heads toward the bar. Ron follows, looking puzzled but similarly acquiescent.

Hermione runs an eye over the others. Ginny looks uncertain, Dean confused, and Seamus annoyed. The Weasley twins are attempting awkward conversation with Draco, mostly consisting of the brothers swapping jokes as though tossing a ball. Neville and Hagrid are watching the Malfoy heir as though expecting him to pull out his wand and curse them at any moment; Luna is smiling at him as though trying to remember where she's seen him before. Hermione takes a breath and plunges back in.

"First round on me!" she calls, holding up the tray of shot glasses.

With some liquor in their system everyone starts to relax, and soon enough the strangeness of Draco's presence is forgotten in the flood of stories and chatter and wisecracks zinging back and forth down the length of the table. She almost expects him to let himself silently fade into the background and is pleasantly surprised when he doesn't. He listens to the stories and laughs at the jokes, contributing comments here and there to egg on the speaker or steer the conversation. He has clearly decided to make the best of the situation, and it helps that the others draw him into their circle without a hint of patronization or mentions of bygones.

She almost forgets it isn't normal for him to be here, until Harry is inviting him to join them at an event planned for the next weekend: Ginny has a Quidditch match, after which everyone is having a potluck picnic in the park.

Nothing about his demeanor changes, but she can sense him tense up. "I have plans."

"Liar," Hermione says. She's got an arm slung around Ginny and is resting her head on her shoulder whilst trying to tally how many shots and pints she's downed. "You'll be sitting at home by yourself."

"Those are still plans," he retorts.

"Come on, Malfoy," calls Ginny. "Be there if only to witness my glorious defeat."

A slight smile breaks up the resistance on his face. "Well," he says, "how can I resist an opportunity like that?"

"Knew it," Ginny says. "Still the same petty little shithead as ever."

Hermione's eyes fly to his face. _She_ knows Ginny is teasing, but—

"And you're the same vulgar little loudmouth," he returns, grinning, holding up his glass in silent toast. "Nice to know some things will never change."

Ginny laughs and toasts him back, and he calls for another round of shots and Harry leans across the table to ask him about food allergies, and Dean (who is studying to be a healer) joins in with an eager expression, and down the table Hagrid is trying to win a bet by drinking from two flagons at once and George is laughing so hard he's crying; and some warm glowy peace that might or might not be the alcohol settles in Hermione's stomach and spreads through her limbs. Ron winks at her from across the table where he sits talking to Neville and Fred, and Hermione smiles at him and snuggles against Ginny and gives her full attention to Luna.

-

Ginny's team wins the match, Hermione gets a sunburn on her nose, and Draco brings filet mignon to the picnic.

"You really don't do this often, do you?" she says, walking with him toward the spot where food-laden blankets make squares of color in the shade under a knot of oaks.

"Is that as bad as the fact that you're implying that you do?" he shoots back.

She wrinkles her pink nose at him, grinning. "Pretend all you like that you don't like mundane middle-age activities; I'm not fooled. You sat there shelling peanuts for the entire match, like a granddad."

Most of the group is already there; she and Draco are late due to having to apparate back to her house to pick up their lunch contributions. Harry and Ginny wave to Draco, indicating that they've saved him a seat.

He says, "Did you give them orders to adopt me?"

"Believe it or not, it was entirely their own idea."

Ron calls, "What are you drinking, Hermione? Malfoy?"

"I've brought lemonade; I'll start with that."

Ginny says, "Is it boozy?"

"It can be boozed." She pulls a bottle of whiskey out of the bag with a flourish. "Courtesy of your local rare liquor hoarder. Older than all of us combined."

Behind her, Draco is shaking his head at the others. "You think I'm wasting the good stuff on eight dehydrated Quiddich-goers? This is the cheap stuff."

Neville takes the bottle and whistles when he reads the label. "One man's cheap stuff is another man's liquid gold. If this is what you're willing to dump on us for a picnic, I'm inviting myself over at Christmas."

Luna asks Draco seriously, "Do you collect Meezle beer? I have bottles with every different label from the past two hundred years."

Hermione fixes her plate happily, listening to the conversation spin around everyone's treasure collections. Ginny and Ron fall into their lifelong argument over a rare chocolate frog card of Lita Lowell, the first female Quiddich player, which Ron swears was his and that Ginny stole, while Ginny says hers was definitely hers and that Ron must have eaten his.

"What do you collect, Hermione?" Draco wants to know.

Harry says, "One guess."

"Rare books. No, scrolls."

She grins at him. "Wrong on both counts."

" 'Rare literary works belong in a library, for the access of any who want or need the information they contain'," says Ron in falsetto.

Draco points at Harry. "I was led astray. Alright, what is it?"

"Quills," says Hermione.

" _Quills?_ "

"Yes, ones that were used by the great witches and wizards who _wrote_ the rare scrolls. Holding them, it's like – nothing I can describe. It's like there are new wondrous spells crowded at the quill tip, just waiting to fall out onto the parchment."

"Nerd," says Draco. "In that case, I have some dragonsblood ink that might interest you."

"Might?" says Dean. "Are you kidding? She would sign over your only child to get her hands on fire ink," while Hermione glares at him and the others laugh.

If Draco has registered Dean's intended plurality of 'your', he doesn't show it. Luna talks to him for a solid ten minutes about thestral ink ("It is definitely a thing, Ron"), after which everyone jumps into a game of pick up Quidditch (grounded, of course, with the Potters' kiddie Quidditch kit instead of fully-magicked equipment), with the exceptions of Ginny and Hermione, who have both had their fill of the game for the day, albeit for different reasons. Ginny casts a spell that will keep them from getting dappled tan lines, and they doze in the shade and eat all the leftover deviled eggs and occasionally murmur things like "Last nice afternoon of the season, probably" and "What do y'think of Harry's hair? He says it's a tribute to Sirius" and "Might be late for Thursday dinner, I've got a budget report due Friday."

The insides of her eyelids change from red to gray. She opens her eyes to find Draco standing over her, his face upside-down and haloed by sunlight.

"Shall I take you home, Sleeping Beauty? Or do you have the energy to appreciate some nearly calcified dragonsblood?"

She smiles up at him.

Ginny, her eyes still closed, flops a hand at him. "Dinner Thursday, Malfoy. Bring your broom. And your barber."

-

Draco's penthouse is even more beautiful by day. "It's like drowning in sunlight," Hermione tells him from the center of sunbeam-filled foyer, and he chuckles and goes ahead of her into the kitchen with his empty potluck dish.

She follows, then stops short at the sight of a skinny, large-eared figure standing on a stool at the kitchen sink.

"You have a house elf," she says, disappointment rushing through her.

"Ah yes! Rocky, behold: Hermione Granger, queen of Spew."

"It was called S-P—"

"Hermione, this is Rockerel. He was in my employ once. Now we're flatmates."

"You're – what now?"

"He didn't have anywhere else to go, and I had an extra bedroom, so I asked him to let me put him up. He wasn't averse to the idea, so now I have a flatmate and he has a bed that he does not like to use."

She watches the house elf scrubbing at a frying pan and says sourly, "You still benefit."

"He likes to clean. What am I supposed to tell him, that he has to live in filth?"

The elf lifts a sudsy hand to tug at his forelock. "Pleased to meet Miss Herminny."

"Likewise," she says, softening. "Is that true, what he said? You're flatmates? Your housework is voluntary?"

"Rocky is an equal resident here," the elf assures her, "with equal access to the wine cellar."

Draco rolls his eyes. "He certainly is. Speaking of fermentation, just a mo, Hermione. I need to check—" He steps back out into the corridor, waving a hand to indicate that she may follow. She trails him to a heavy door that opens to a laboratory.

The room is full of highways of glass: rainbows of liquid racing through tubes to beakers, simmering over low flames, boiling and steaming over hot fires. He has every sort of brewing apparatus she has ever seen and some she hasn't.

"Are these potions for your business?"

"Nah. Personal use, mostly. I have about ten going now," he tells her. She identifies three on sight and inspects the others while he slowly adds hummingbird feathers to a purplish stew.

There's a silvery gray one she can't place at all. "What's this?"

"Hm? Oh. An experiment."

She perks up. "Oh?"

He laughs. "I forgot with whom I was speaking. It's just a sleeping draught."

"You're experimenting with sleeping draughts? Who's your test subject?" She has an awful feeling she already knows.

"It's just to clear my head."

"It's dangerous! You have no idea what what the long term effects might be – or short term, for that matter—"

"I didn't sleep for a year after Dumbledore died, Hermione." His voice is hard. "Nothing else works; this does; I'll live with the consequences."

"There has to be a better option. Have you tried memory modification?"

Anger blazes in his eyes. "What kind of coward do you take me for? People died because of things I did. _Forgetting isn't an option._ "

Hermione drops the argument. Through painful trial and error she has learned that there are things she must let other people work out on their own, even if it's hurting them, even if she can help them better than they can help themselves. So she bites her tongue and nods and drops it, though it makes her heart ache to do it.

He appears to be finished with the feathers. "Where is the ink?" she asks, and his black expression clears.

"In the library," he tells her, and chuckles when her face lights up.

-

Slowly, steadily, he becomes part of the cement of their group; so much so that his presence among them is expected instead of requested, and they all modify their wards to grant him access, and Harry's kids include him in their drawings.

Hermione feels like she's watching someone come to life. The spark that was so rare in his pewter-blue eyes as to be exquisite when glimpsed or caused is now a common sight. His laughter is a familiar sound.

He's at group supper at the Potters' every Thursday and has an established spot at the table. He lends and borrows Quiddich supplies and gear and books with Harry so often that Ginny makes him stop at the door when entering or departing so that she can label anything he's carrying with the appropriate owner's initials. He exercises with Ron and Seamus, he shows Luna the ropes of Muggle flea markets, and he goes to Neville's flower show. He helps both Dean and the Weasley twins improve their potion recipes, to everyone's respective gratification and trepidation.

He's a master at potions; he could fill books with the new draughts he's invented since his Hogwarts days. For Hermione, whiling away her days in Ministry meetings, the chance to create is enticing. The chance to add to her own considerable knowledge from his mental storehouse is even more enticing. They owl each other questions and answers over the course of the day and she'll arrive at his door with the idea for a new potion buzzing through her mind.

For all that, they're easily sidetracked. She'll tell him about her day and he'll tell her about his and suddenly an hour will have passed. He drags her to the library to dig up a scroll to prove his side when they're debating the merits of one ingredient over another, and each trip invariably culminates in her sitting on the floor surrounded by books and scrolls, her face alight with eagerness while he sits on the table and listens and argues and smiles.

She has supper at the penthouse so often she knows where all his kitchen appliances are kept. She stays late so often that both Draco and Rocky call her regular guestroom 'Hermione's room'. She spends so much time shoulder to shoulder with him, her head bent next to his over a cauldron, that she knows the rhythm of his breathing and the scents of his cologne versus laundry detergent and the length of his top row of eyelashes compared to the lower.

He gives her a bottle of golden ink for Christmas. "You can write anywhere," he shows her, tracing out letters in the air. Her name in golden script hangs before her eyes before dissolving. He writes on the marble tabletop, on his palm, on a glass beaker.

"Simply say the spell over whatever parchment you're using and it will show up there." She reads the black scrawl that has appeared on the scroll she holds. _Hermione Granger is - the shining spot on the surface of the raindrop - the bright clean metal within an old Galleon - the mist of the orange peel when sipping sweet bourbon._

She says, "That is a strange and lovely description, Draco Malfoy."

He says, "You're a strange and lovely person, Hermione Granger."

-

Hermione feels like she's watching someone come to life while actively dying.

She doesn't say anything, not when he shows up with bloodshot eyes and deep purple circles underneath; not when she realizes the volume of his experimental sleeping draught has doubled; not when his hands shake so badly that he can't trust them to scoop ingredients.

Until she breaks. Of course she breaks.

She couldn't have picked a worse day for it if she'd been instructed by an Oracle. He's in a foul mood; he has just returned from visiting his parents in Azkaban. In an attempt to make sure he's eating she's stopped by with takeaway, which he hasn't touched. She watches him pour three fingers of scotch into a glass, swallow it, and repeat.

She already knows how much of his sleeping draught he'll take. She already knows how little it will help and how much more it will weaken him. She can hear him in her mind, telling her that an hour of dreamless sleep is still better than none.

She says, "Will you let me help you?"

He pours a third glass. "Just what I always wanted. To become one of Hermione Granger's special projects."

"Don't be like that. I care about you. I want to help you."

"You want to fix me. I can't be fixed. Get that through your head."

"I have a few ideas that I think will work—"

"There's the know-it-all I haven't missed."

"That was a nasty thing to say."

He throws back the glass and sets it down with a wince. "You don't get to play God with me, Granger."

"I just want to help you."

"I don't care. These are my problems and I'll handle them in the matter I deem best."

They're in his library. He slumps onto the leather sofa. Exhausted as he is, it takes him less than a minute to fall asleep. He doesn't sleep well after drinking, she knows, hence the ever-altering sleeping draught; she predicts he'll be wide awake again in three hours, give or take. She takes away the bottle and tells Rocky to hide the rest of the contents of the liquor cabinet, for all the good it will do. Then she apparates to Harry's.

"I don't know what to do. He's destroying himself. Surely you see it."

"Of course I do. I think he lets you see it more than the rest of us, though. I wish I knew what to tell you. Dumbledore would have known. This is rather outside of my area of expertise."

"But Sirius did something like this, remember? How did he snap out of it?"

"Sirius needed purpose and freedom. He was drowning in memories of my parents and in his guilt over their deaths, and being chained up, so to speak, wasn't helping. But that was short term and the guilt was a different sort. A not-having-done guilt, not a have-done guilt like Draco's." Harry says, "I think he's been alone for a very long time. Longer than we've realized."

She goes back to the penthouse. Draco is still asleep in the library. She lets herself into the laboratory.

The sleeping draught is simmering over a low flame. She watches the silver bubbles grow and break. There is no potion in the world she hates more than this one.

There is no potion she knows better, either. She's made a point to learn it. Draco is secretive about it, knowing her disapproval, but he's made so many changes to it that he can't keep them all in his head and he has to write it down, and she knows where he keeps the list.

She gathers materials and starts prepping. Aster to negate the poppy. Viperfish scales to boost the luciferase. She combines ingredients in smaller cauldrons to make new compounds. She's careful and methodical despite the tension in her shoulders that wants her to hurry.

The dark silver storm in Draco's cauldron slowly turns a deep silvery green. She adjusts the heat.

"What are you doing?"

She whirls around. He's standing in the doorway: deadly pale, fire in his eyes.

"I thought—"

"What are you _doing_?" he shouts.

She pleads, "I'm just trying to help."

"How dare you? How _dare_ you, Hermione! _Help?_ You're nothing but a meddling control freak! Is there no end to this?" He roars, "Get out of my flat! _Get out of my life!_ "

Hermione grabs her wand and apparates away. She tumbles to the floor of her living room, bends her head to her knees, and bursts into tears.

-

No owls bear letters from him. The fire network stays silent. He doesn't show up at her home or her office.

She decides she wouldn't have answered a letter, anyway. If he'd knocked at her door she'd have sent him away without listening to a word. If he's expecting her to contact him, he'll be waiting until the day he dies.

She crams her waking hours with work and books and Harry and Ginny and Ron and the others, so there's no good reason why his absence seems so _total_. Like her life has been sucked into a black hole. Like her heart is caving in like a sinkhole, and she doesn't have a way to fill the chambers again.

-

Friday night arrives and Hermione elects to stay in. She's alternating between reading and dozing when her fireplace flares up and and startles her so badly she tumbles right off the couch.

Rocky's distraught face appears in the flames. "Miss Herminny!" he screeches. "You told Rocky to tell you if ever Rocky cannot rouse once-Master Draco!"

She rubs a hand over her eyes. "Very good, Rocky. Take a breath. Are you breathing? Don't pass out. What did he last have to drink? If it's vodka he'll be awake in an hour."

"It was the sleeping draught, Miss Herminny! Once-Master drinks it in his laboratory and now he does not stir!"

-

Harry is saying, "Hermione, slow down, I can't understand what you're—"

And she's screaming, "He drank the whole thing, Harry—"

And the healers at St. Mungo's pull him out of her arms and they're shouting commands and more are arriving at a run and

his eyes are closed and his head is lolling and his face is white as chalk and he is as heavy as death

and the blood in her nerves stretches out and springs back like metal coils

and she wants to be sick but when she stands over the toilet nothing comes up, her stomach just churns and churns as she stares at her faint reflection in the surface of the water in the bowl. She paces the corridor while Ginny sits curled in a chair, watching her with sober eyes. They wait and wait and wait and wait and wait and wait and wait and finally a healer with a shock of bright red hair approaches them and says that it's touch and go, it doesn't look good, does he have family who will want to say goodbye?

Hermione goes back to the washroom and then she is sick, and she sits on the floor and sobs until she's a mess of tears and snot and bile and she doesn't know how long she's there before Ginny finds her and mops up her face and sanitizes everything else. They go back to the chairs in the corridor and Harry conducts an entire conversation with Ginny in one look and they sit and doze and watch the seconds tick past. Hermione realizes that Rocky is sitting in the corner behind a potted plant and he unwillingly reveals he's been there the whole time and she starts crying again, and he flees to find her a cup of tea and Ginny follows him to fetch them something solid to eat. The healer from before materializes in the space Ginny has vacated to tell Hermione and Harry that touch and go finally picked a side.

-

They sit in the recovery ward waiting room: Ginny, Hermione, Rocky, all with knees together and backs straight, their eyes on Harry as he crosses the room to them from where he's been speaking with a medi-witch.

"He's awake. They're saying we can see him soon."

Ginny sighs, a long release, and takes his hand. Harry lifts it and presses a quick kiss to the base of her thumb.

Hermione sits and lets the relief sink in all the way through her skin and muscle into the bones and organs—then she collects her bag and coat.

Harry says, "Where are you going?"

"Do me a favor, Harry, don't tell him I was here. He won't like to know it."

He looks bewildered. "You're still in that fight?"

She starts. She hasn't said a word to Harry about the row.

"That idiot and his pride. Hermione, come on. Things like this, this wipes away things like that."

"He doesn't want see me."

"You're wrong. I've never been so sure of anything, Ginny excepted. Please stay."

So she stays. She knows she'll regret it, but she stays. And she does regret it, immediately, the moment she sits in the chair that's precisely far enough from his bed to be too far away from his bed, with her hands between her knees, her greeting as stiff and awkward as her posture.

Harry and Ginny stand on the other side of the bed and suffuse the air with love, like their two hearts have merged into one that radiates warmth and comfort and pure affection. They tell him how glad they are he's alright and briefly explain the events that brought all of them here; they glance at Hermione repeatedly as though expecting her to take over the telling of the story, but she sits silent. She hardly registers what they're saying. She can't seem to look away from his heart rate monitor, a golden thread suspended in the air above his bed. She feels like she is holding her breath between every upward bump.

Finally the Potters cast significant looks at her and leave the room for reasons she doesn't hear. Her gaze falls to Draco's face. He is looking at her; she realizes she's supposed to say something.

"I'm glad you're alright."

His face, eyes, voice are totally neutral. "I hear it's thanks to you."

"I was hardly involved. No more than I had to be."

"I see." His jaw clenches and she can practically hear him thinking _meddling control freak._

Voices in the corridor. The door opens and a horde of people pours into the room: Ron and Luna and Dean and Seamus and Neville and Fred and George and even Blaise Zabini, who looks more surprised to be present than anyone. Hermione, rejoicing, sees her chance and escapes the room.

She almost makes it out undetected, but there are rapid footsteps in the corridor behind her and Ron says her name. He catches her elbow. "Where are you going?"

"To drink an entire bottle of top shelf whiskey."

"Lord, H, it's half ten in the morning."

"So what?"

He gives her a long, assessing glance. "Well. Merlin. Alright. I'm coming with you."

"Ron, you don't—" But he's already shaking his head.

"Nobody drinks alone, eh? Lead on. The most expensive blackout of our lives awaits. Merlin. Half ten in the morning. Just let me get my coat."

-

10:30.

Hermione blinks at the clock and briefly thinks she has time traveled before realizing, sluggishly, that it's the next morning.

Next in the series of realizations: she is in her own bed; she has a splitting headache; and something is banging. She sifts through her brain for sounds and tries to find its pair.

The front door. Something is banging on the front door.

She checks to make sure she is clothed—yes, pajama shorts, hardly weather-appropriate, and yesterday's shirt, now rumpled—and lurches to her feet, clutching furniture on her journey through her living room. Not her most brilliant idea, answering the door in this state, she'll realize later; but her one and only aim is to get the banging to stop.

"Hold your _horses_ ," she says, fumbling with the lock, "Are you trying to break down the door?" and swings it open.

"It was a perfectly normal knock."

"You," she says stupidly.

"This a good time?"

"Ah... not really."

Draco looks over her shoulder. "You have a bloke back there, or something?" right as she realizes she's leaning against Ron's jacket on the coat peg.

"Well—no—but—"

He walks in. She watches him cross through to her kitchen area and take a mug out of her cupboard before she realizes that the reason her legs are freezing is because the door is still open. She closes it without thinking and nearly shatters her skull when it slams shut.

Draco brings her the mug of water, which is now a violent orange.

"What is it?" she says doubtfully.

"Hangover cure."

She drinks every drop. Within moments her headache and nausea have faded as though they were never there.

He's watching her carefully. The moment she looks at him with clear eyes, he says, "I didn't get to say what I wanted to in the hospital."

The potion cured her hangover but did nothing for her unaffiliated fatigue. "Please, Draco, it's too early for a lecture."

"Lecture? I'm not here to lecture you."

She hands him the empty mug. "Do you have a coffee potion?"

"You're deflecting," he says, but goes back to the sink.

She inches around the room trying to get to her wand, which is poking out of a mass of blankets on her couch. One eye is on Draco and one is on the back hallway. All she needs is a simple spell, something to keep Ron silent and out of sight.

Three things happen at once.

She picks up her wand.

Draco finishes brewing something in the mug and steps back into the main room.

Ron emerges from the bathroom, whistling and shirtless.

The song dies on his lips; his eyes double in size. "This isn't what it looks like," he says instantly.

Draco says, "It makes no difference to me whatsoever. Your affairs are your own. Excuse me for interrupting. Hermione." He sets down the mug on her dining room table, nods curtly to her, and apparates away, but not before she sees his eyes have gone shuttered and cold.

Ron curses. "Ach, Hermione, I'm sorry, I'll fix this, I'll go to him right now and explain, just let me find my shirt—"

"Don't bother. It doesn't matter."

He gapes at her. "Doesn't matter! Doesn't _matter_! You're a piss-poor liar, Hermione Granger. You look in the mirror and try saying that again with a straight face. Doesn't matter!"

"It would be different if this had happened—before, but he stopped caring a while ago. There's no point. Don't go, Ron, you'll only make me look a fool."

"He cares, H. As much as you do, maybe even more."

She shakes her head.

He drops the shirt he's been trying to untangle and takes her gently by the shoulders. "Hermione, please listen. I know what it feels like to wish for you across a divide that can't be crossed. That was the look on his face, just now, about you. He _cares_."

"Even if… even if he does, which he _doesn't_ , the uncrossable divide is there, too."

"No. No, it's different, this one. It's crossable. But one of you has to pony up and take the first step. Now, from the look of it, he might have been about to do that very thing, which I ruined as effectively as a hurricane. And my money's on him wanting to do it at the hospital if you hadn't fled the scene; another brilliant assist from yours truly."

"Wrong. He came here to tell me off. He thinks I was meddling again. You didn't see him before you got there yesterday. I'm the last person he wanted there. He hates me." Suddenly there are tears in her eyes. She's going to bring on another headache.

"Hermione, either you go or I do. You've spent half my life rescuing me from stupid situations I usually only had myself to thank for getting into. Consider this the payment of a very large debt. You, or me." He points to the fireplace.

His expression is mulish. Hermione knows that expression well enough to know this is a battle she has well and truly lost.

"Fine. Let me get dressed."

"Nope. Absolutely no stalling permitted," he says. " _In_." He pushes her toward the fireplace and hands her the floo tin.

She throws powder at the flames, glaring at him as she steps inside.

"And don't come back until you've snogged, or worse!" she hears him shout after her.

-

She steps out of the fireplace in the penthouse study and is met by the sight of pale blond hair and grey eyes.

He's standing across the room by the liquor cart, pouring himself a drink. He's obviously startled by her entrance; he stops mid-pour, his mouth half open in astonishment. They stare at each other, frozen.

Sun streams in through the massive window behind him, lighting the edges of his pale hair, turning the strands gossamer. He's so alive she aches with it.

The blinding fury she has been ignoring rolls up through her. Throat tight, voice rigid, she says: "Why did you do it?" She fists her hands, wishing she could hit something. "I know you were unhappy, but—killing yourself? Don't you know—" Her throat closes. _It would have destroyed me._

In contrast to her flushed face and burning eyes, his face is a mask; and when he speaks, his voice is even, controlled. "It wasn't a suicide attempt."

She looks at him in disbelief. "A whole cauldron," she says.

"Stupid, I know. I was trying to sleep. As always."

"You nearly _died_ , Draco!"

"Yes. Thank you for saving my life, by the way. That's what I stopped by to say." He takes a long drink.

She crosses her arms tightly. "It was all Rocky and the healers. I was barely involved."

"Is that what you'd call it?"

"If you're going to call shuttling you from here to the hospital _meddling_ —"

"Hermione. I'm not angry, I'm genuinely thankful. I also happen to know that you're the reason I stayed alive long enough for St. Mungo's to be able to keep me that way. And before you get mad at whoever wasn't supposed to tell me you were involved, let me say: _everyone_ told me you were involved. Literally everyone."

"Well. There's no need for thanks." She stares at the floor. "Anyone would have done the same. It was only right." He might not want her anywhere near his life, but he can't hold this against her, surely. Not when it's something anyone would do.

He smiles sourly at his glass. "You've said."

"The healers told us you would die." She looks at him, trying to contain the hot tears brimming in her eyes. "I believed you were going to die. And I couldn't do anything about it."

His eyes lift to her face; he looks at her a little more closely, and his lips part. He frowns slightly. This time when he speaks his voice is more sincere.

"It was an overdose, Hermione. It was—everything was just—too heavy. You were gone." He tries to find words, shakes his head. "You were gone. I was trying to drown out all the reminders that you were gone."

"What are you saying? This was all because of me?"

"No. It was absolutely, entirely because of me." He studies the liquid in his glass and sets it down, running a hand over his jaw. "There haven't been a lot of good things in my life. Before the war, since the war. Successes, yes, but nothing… _good_. Until you. Like this sudden bright warm light in the dark. And which I managed to ruin within—what? four months? That might be a personal record."

"What?" Her mind is spinning, comparing his current words to past ones. "You called me a meddling control freak."

"I haven't forgotten. I was an utter cad. And a coward. I treated you in a way that I swore I would never treat anyone ever again. And I'm sorry for it, I swear to you, I'm sorry with my entire heart. If my mind had been anywhere close to its normal state, you'd have been told so before you'd even made it out the front door. But then, if I'd been anywhere close to normal, I wouldn't have reacted the way I did, would I?" His voice is tight, hoarse. "I've been dosing myself with one thing or another for years. I didn't realize how bad it was until you started coming round. Didn't realize how bad I'd let it get. And then – you. You, you numbed everything. That's not right. You blotted it all out. For a while I thought maybe you could be enough, that I could shift my addiction to you. But when you weren't around everything was worse. It was never a good situation to begin with, but it was bearable, just. Until I made you into a crutch. Then – it was like all the heaviness and the darkness and the despair that I'd kept a tight hold on, that I had to be constantly controlling but they were _controlled_ – all of that got loose. It was chaos. You know. You saw it. I could see you seeing it. And I couldn't get it together, I can't get it together, it's like trying to grasp water. All the memories are as fresh as though they happened last week. The nightmares—" His ragged voice cuts off. He shakes his head, staring down at the whiskey glass, though he doesn't pick it up. "They're not just while I sleep. They stay, they live in my head all day. I drove you away and I didn't know how to get you back and they were all that was left. They hit me like a trainwreck. That was why I drank the cauldron. I couldn't take it anymore and I didn't know how else to escape them."

Hermione is crying silently; tears are coursing down her face and dripping off her chin. She wants to rush across the room and take him in her arms, but his pain is alive on his skin, it is fire, it is a jagged festering wound. She knows these are things he cannot rest until he has said; the storm in his mind and his heart will not settle until every word is spoken. So instead she grips her arms across her stomach as though holding onto a lifeline, and listens.

He speaks low and slow. "I wanted so badly to be better for you. To not have to be one more weight you have to carry. And all I've done is hurt you. I don't know what it is that makes me lash out at the people I love. But I know I can be better than this. I want to be. And I'm going to be. I talked to some healers. They've got me on a more stable potions regimen and I swear I'll follow it. And I'm getting help. There's a group of ex-Death Eaters who've had changes of heart, gone straight. The war, things we did… it's not easy to talk about with people who don't know what it's like to have him in your head. I think—I think he's still in mine. Not in the same way of course, but... It sticks, you know?"

She tightens her arms. Nods.

"I'm going to see if I can get him out. Completely out. Find some peace, maybe. Real peace. Not just dodging memories. Not temporary relief from sleeping draughts."

She inadvertently glances at the whiskey.

"And booze," he says. "Though this is for an unrelated event."

She doesn't have the words for all the things she is feeling, for her desperate wish that they could have been nothing but a couple of loudmouths who spent their days at Hogwarts squabbling over his snobbishness and her swottiness, whose greatest concerns were of no greater magnitude than doing well on their OWLS; for how much she wishes she had known, had been able to help him, could help him, could heal everything, could remove this weight, could promise him the pain will end.

So instead she crosses the room and takes him in her arms and fits herself against him so that his heartbeat thuds against her cheek. He slides his arms around her and drops his head to her shoulder with a long breath out.

They stand for a long time in the the block of sunlight streaming in through the window. His body is firm and warm against her. She can feel the heat of his breath through the fabric of her shirt. He says, "Does this mean you've forgiven me?" He tenses, starts to pull away. "I don't have any right to expect you to, I've got a lot to make up for, I know it—"

She hugs him tighter.

After a moment his arms slide around her again. "Will you? Please? Will you please. Shit, I hate making you cry, I didn't mean—"

"Of course I forgive you." She presses her wet eyes against his shoulder and leaves a smudge on his pristine white shirt. "Will you forgive me?"

"There's nothing—"

"For not respecting your wishes about the brew. And for hating you, so much, all those years ago, for hating you to the point of blindness, for hating you so much I didn't care if they carried you to hell with them."

"It's forgotten," he says, lips against her hair.

She leans back so she can see his face. His broken heart still sits in his eyes. She's never felt so helpless.

"What can I do?"

She can feel the answer sliding up through his lungs to his throat to his mouth. It escapes in a soft exhalation. "Nothing."

"That wasn't what you were going to say."

He only looks down at her; reaches up, brushes her wild morning hair away from her eyes.

"I wish," she says, and her voice catches.

"None of that. This isn't your fault."

"I still wish."

He's still lost to her, somehow. All these words, and still he's looking at her like a man standing on the edge of a desert, about to take his first step in. The uncrossable divide. Well, but they're here, aren't they? Standing on the same side. A long road ahead, but one they'll walk together. Both forgiving, both forgiven. Misunderstandings—

She stills.

"Draco," she says, and her voice sounds strange to her ears. "Nothing happened between me and Ron. He stays over sometimes, just as a friend. I wanted to get hammered and he wanted to make sure I didn't do anything stupid. Nothing happened."

He stares at her. His eyes rapidly scan her face.

 _Brave_ , she thinks; but as it turns out, it's the easiest thing in the world to say when it's him she's saying it to.

"I'm in love with you." He goes perfectly still. "I thought you hated me and I love you and until about five minutes ago my heart was broken in a million pieces. That's why I left yesterday and that's why I got drunk. And anyone who has ever called me clever ought to rescind their statement. Because you love me too. I should have recognized it. Yours looks different from what I'm used to, and I didn't, but I should have. We love each other." She skims a thumb along his cheekbone. "I'll never leave you again."

He's gaping at her, now.

"Draco Malfoy, if you don't kiss me this instant I'm going to hex you."

He makes a sound like a strangled laugh and catches her to him in the loveliest vise grip. He tucks her against him with one arm and cups her jaw with his other hand, his fingers carded through her hair, and he fits his mouth to hers like they were born for this.

She reaches up to lace her arms around his neck. She can feel him smiling against her mouth and he's warm all around her. His kiss burns itself into the center of her heart and a bright glowing bubble of happiness expands out from it through her chest and floods her whole body.

Sunshine streams into the room, clearing out the shadows, surrounding them with light, as though to say: 

Come back to life. Here it is, waiting. This is where it starts. 

This is where it begins again.


End file.
